


No Blinding Light

by The_Last_Kenobi



Series: Whumptober 2020 [26]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Blindness, Eye Trauma, F/M, Gen, Head Injury, Loss of Trust, Major Character Injury, Panic, Trauma, Whump, Whumptober 2020, loss of sight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:48:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27242209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Last_Kenobi/pseuds/The_Last_Kenobi
Summary: ...or tunnels to gates of white.Anakin's not dying. He's going to be just fine, they keep telling him.Except for the debilitating migraines, and the fact that he will never see again....It's easier to hide.Written for Whumptober 2020Day 26 - Blindness
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex & Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Series: Whumptober 2020 [26]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1956463
Comments: 2
Kudos: 106





	No Blinding Light

**Author's Note:**

> Technically a follow-up tp my Day 25 prompt fill, but can be treated as a stand-alone

“Anakin.”

A long pause.

“Anakin.”

A shorter pause.

“…Anakin, I know you’re awake.”

Anakin keeps his eyes stubbornly shut, his jaw clenched. He can sense Obi-Wan standing near his bed, his aura muted and soft, swirling with all the familiarity of home. Normally, when Anakin was ill or injured – _really_ ill or injured – he would cling to that presence without shame. Obi-Wan was…safety.

Not now.

Now, he keeps searching his former Master’s Force presence for traces of pity.

Now, he knows that when he opens his eyes, he won’t be able to see him.

Like Ahsoka.

Or Kix.

Or Vokara Che.

Or Yoda, or Windu, or Rex, or Fives, or any of the others who had tried to visit him in the past week.

Every time Anakin opens his eyes, his vision is worse.

Ahsoka had been a blur. _Now_ , she is a colorful wisp, so stretched out and unfocused that he can barely pinpoint which side of the room she is on. The lights always hurt his eyes, but were also somehow never bright enough.

Everything is growing…

Dimmer.

“All right,” Obi-Wan murmurs.

Anakin expects the man to leave, but he doesn’t. The sound of a faint scuffing tells him that he’s pulling up a chair to settle in beside his old Padawan, and Anakin is filled with resentment.

This is the pity he has been anticipating.

“Go,” he growls, “away.”

“Certainly,” says Obi-Wan. He doesn’t move.

“Get out,” Anakin orders.

“Absolutely,” Obi-Wan answers.

Still he doesn’t leave.

Anakin’s eyes snap open. He is staring at what must be the ceiling, a fuzzy, undulating mass of white and grey. Slowly, a faint smudge of golden-red and beige enters his view as Obi-Wan leans slightly over him. Anakin can almost feel the pity rolling off him, etched into the older man’s face.

“Stop that,” Anakin snaps.

“Am I leaning too close?” Obi-Wan asks concernedly. “Does it hurt your eyes?”

“Frip my eyes, frip the pain!” Anakin almost yells, tangling his fingers in the bedsheets until he feels like he’s about to tear his fingernails off. “I don’t want your _pity_ , Obi-Wan!”

There’s a flare of surprise that the older Jedi quickly conceals. “Anakin—”

“You have no idea what you’re doing here!” Anakin accuses. “Why do you constantly insert yourself where I don’t want you? You’re not needed!”

Obi-Wan half-gasps, “I—"

“ _Get out!_ ”

This time, Obi-Wan leaves.

* * *

Ahsoka and Rex visit again.

Rex is uncomfortable, that much is clear; his blue-white-brown blur shifts around the room and his Force signature is strained and uncertain.

Ahsoka puts on a good show, talking to him, forcing him to reply, stroking the back of his hand and telling him stories from the parts of the campaign where they were separated. But underneath all that she’s frightened and worried and radiating a toxic mixture of guilt and pity that makes Anakin’s stomach _roll_.

“Ahsoka,” he says. “You can go. You too, Rex.”

Rex hesitates.

He can almost see— except he can’t, can he? —them exchange concerned looks, and he withdraws his hand sharply from the young Togruta’s. “ _Go_.”

They leave slowly.

* * *

After kicking all his friends out of the room, he’s left alone for the most part. The Healers come and go, of course, blathering about this and that and asking questions, but none of it matters.

The words stopped being about “ _reasons for hope_ ” days and days ago, and then it was all about “ _maintaining integrity_ ” and “ _taking it slow_ ” and “ _finding healthy, preventative treatment_.”

Now, it’s come down to “ _being cautious and kind_ ,” and “ _assessing pain triggers_ ” and “ _determining the way forward._ ”

It all means that his eyes are degrading too rapidly.

His eyesight can’t be saved.

Soon, he won’t be able to perceive even the brightest light – soon, he won’t be able to see the washed-out, blurred-out mosaics of color that are the people around him.

He’s already seen Ahsoka clearly for the last time, seen Rex and any of the 501st for the last time. And none of them knew it.

It’s worse, in a way, than dying. Becoming one with the Force.

He’s still _here_ , he still has duties and a life and people who he loves, and he can’t… he’ll never see them again. _Ever_.

So when the Padawan Healer enters the room and says that one Senator Amidala wants to visit, Anakin turns her down cold. No message, no explanation, just – _**no**_.

In the Force, he can sense his wife’s shock and surprise, her rising worry for him, all swirling together into a great cloud of love and devotion that has him on the verge of tears—

But then Padmé regains control over herself.

All those feelings are still there, but she reins herself in and focuses. Determination floods her, and she marches away, no doubt to find another way to see him.

She’s going to find Obi-Wan.

Well, Anakin thinks as he informs the Healers that he wants no visitors _at all_ , she’s going to be disappointed. They all are.

* * *

He hears them arguing. His would-be visitors and the Healers, Councilors and the Healers, Healers and other Healers.

They bicker over his eyesight, his mental health, the justification of his ban against visitors.

They argue, and argue, and argue.

He hears Ahsoka’s distressed voice and buries the guilt under his anger. He hears Rex’s quiet disbelief, and then senses his resignation.

Obi-Wan he doesn’t feel at all. Whether that’s because he isn’t even trying to visit, or because he’s locked his shields so tightly that Anakin can’t sense him, is impossible to guess. (He can guess if he wants, he _knows_ the man is out there asking after him, but that’s not worth thinking about.)

Padmé, on the other hand, her betrayal, her hurt, her desire to make sure he is healthy and safe, her love for him, they crash against his shields and cut him as deeply as her desperate cry of “Anakin, _please!_ ”

He’s breaking her heart.

But he can’t bear letting her nearer, letting any of them nearer.

It’s like watching them die in his arms, this slow loss of vision. He will never see them clearly again; holding them closer only leads to watching them slip further from his grasp. Along with his career, his dreams, his purpose.

Anakin pulls a pillow over his head and tries to drown out the overwhelming input from his emotions, and the completely underwhelming input coming from his eyes. With his face covered, he can pretend that he would be able to see again when he removed it.

* * *

One day, Anakin opens his eyes, and he can’t see the foot of his bed.

The lights, he is told, are on full luminosity.

It looks like a foggy twilight. His head aches.

Anakin grabs the pillow again and forces himself to sleep.

* * *

The Healers try to talk to him about learning how to be a Jedi again without his sight. They talk about re-training, about his skill level preparing him for the work, about having a Clone Trooper assistant at all times, about merging the 501st into the 212th, about some Jedi who went through a similar loss of sight named Tahl Uvain.

None of it matters.

Anakin has been pulled from the war efforts. He has abandoned his duty. He will never be as good as he once was, Force be fripping _damned_.

* * *

Maybe the Force heard his repeated curses, because it grants him one last glimpse before his vision goes entirely.

The door to his room is flung open, and despite the cries of a Healer, two blurs rush into the room and bolt directly towards him.

He sees a watercolor-smudge image of Ahsoka’s white-on-orange markings and wide blue eyes and of the light gleaming in Obi-Wan’s ruddy gold hair and his wide, stricken eyes.

They’re surprisingly vivid, these images.

And then there’s a disabling spike of pain, and it all goes.

And Anakin…is _blind_ , his hands stretching out into an infinite blackness, his sobs catching in his throat as hands try and catch his, to reassure him, but even though they’re familiar, they’re strange. 

And even though they’re right there, he’s alone.


End file.
